Uthangarai

14th March, 2008

I was in a place called Uthangarai – a remote hamlet in a corner of the Krishnagiri District. It is on the crossroads between what used to be 2 very busy trucking routes in Tamil Nadu.

Over the years, the significance of the place on the state map has gone down. The roads have deteriorated and the locale remains one of the least developed in Tamil Nadu in terms of infrastructure and industry.

Public transport is very bad or is not well connected. So people have to go in for their own means of transportation. This area remains one of the top rural markets for taxis and vans for ferrying people to Vellore, Salem and Chennai – 3 places where the many business interests of the people here lie.

I had stopped in Uthangarai to meet a customer of ours. I was leaving to Chennai and I had run out of cigarettes. I stopped by at a small shop and asked for a pack of Gold Flake Kings cigarettes.

I handed out a Rs. 100 bill and the shop keeper didn’t have stock, so he walked over to another shop and got it for me. The pack costs Rs. 38 normally. In villages you get it for Rs. 40. But this guy gave me change of Rs. 55 – meaning the pack had cost me Rs. 45.

He gave me a statement before he handed me the change – “Sir, the amount of money you spend on this pack of cigarettes can buy 20 kg of rice from a government fair price shop”.

My casual reply was, “Nothing can be done about that”

Then I asked him, “Why does this pack of cigarettes cost Rs. 5 more?”

He says, “That is the rate the other fellow gave it to me for”

I reply, “If you don’t have the stuff in your shop, how can you buy it for me at a cost higher than the normal cost?”

He says, “OK sir, since you are so concerned about the money, I will return the material and give you back your money”

He returned the money and I asked him, “Why do you think this Rs. 5 is not so important to me? Do you think people make money without working or do I look like a fool?”

He mumbles something and just goes away.

As I was driving back I was wondering – it was a new thought to me that one pack of my cigarettes is worth more than 20 kg of food grain in our country. Is it that the food is cheap or is it that the tobacco is costly?

A man who buys rice from a ration shop buys it at Rs. 2 per kg. I am not eligible for this scheme because I make than Rs. 10000 per annum. I have to buy rice at Rs. 22 per kg from a normal grocer. I bet the guy who tried to make Rs. 5 from me did not know this.

The Killng Groungds

I was driving down from Chennai to Salem yesterday. The route was Chennai – Dindivanavam – Villupuram – Ulundurpet – Kallakurichi – Attur – Salem.

It is a 4 laner from Chennai to Dindivanam. After that it is the old 2 laner – this stretch of road from Dindivanam to Ulundurpet (90 kms) may be rightfully called the killing grounds of TN. At least 2 major accidents everyday – god alone knows how many get killed from dusk to dawn.

This stretch was just overcrowded at one point of time. Now, a 4 laner is getting ready – work is in progress since early 2007. The old road has not been topped during this whole period. The road has just disintegrated and everybody has to take this one route to reach – Coimbatore, Salem, Erode, Tirupur in one side and Trichy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Nagercoil on the other side. It is also the access to Tanjore, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore and the entire east of TN.

Yesterday it was raining heavily right from Chennai to Salem. After I hit the old road, I could see an accident every 10 kms. A whole bus on its belly like a dead cockroach. Huge trailers broken like thin twigs. Small cars reduced to pulp. Trucks parked on the shoulder just sinking into the mud.

Traffic jams everywhere. Till a new road is built and is operational, the old road must be maintained. This is plain simple logic. 10 people killed everyday is a big thing. Nobody reports this and nobody cares. There are no proper “Take Diversion” sign boards anywhere. There are such huge ruts and potholes that a car driver has to think which one to avoid and which one the car can afford to plough into. For all this, the pace of the road is not slow by any means. It is a nerve wracking experience driving through this stretch. Whenever I come this way, my knee aches from the clutch, shoulders from the continuous zig zagging and rough drive. There is no watering place. Everything is dug up on both sides – no entering the by lane for a chaai and dhum.

There was a news article in NDTV this morning. “Fiat takes auto journalists on an Arctic tour in Sweden to prove the ruggedness of the Linea and the Grande’ Punto”.

Professional journalists are chasing sensations and the common man is left to become a citizen journalist to capture the woes of the common man. The whole concept of journalism today has moved from the classical, meaning the traditional news, to the sensational, meaning the production of news out of non news making things. The Tamil media is more concerned about the harangues and bad mouthings between the CM and the Ex CM, Vijayakanth and their whole families ranging from their sons to annis. There are hundreds of banners – good flex banners – of various political dramas – our Lion, our Tamil saviour, our Tamil saint, our Tamil revolutionary. But they don’t add up to much when it comes to saving people’ lives. The NDTV’s and the CNN’s run more programs than news coverage.

When I was in the traffic jam yesterday, my knee was aching, my back was aching, my head was aching. We had been at one spot for more than an hour – no policeman turned up to clear the mess. Every john was cutting in and out of the mess trying to find a way to wriggle through. There was a minor accident where a bus driver violated the queue and brushed a car. One of the doors of the car was gone. There was a big fight. Nobody went home or wherever they wanted to go for lunch. So many man hours lost, so many kilo liters of fuel lost.

An ambulance couldn’t get through. Its siren went off 15 minutes into the jam. Things just cooled off after the person or people in the ambulance died. I think it was the struggle in the ambulance that made us all animals. People were embarrassed and they just relaxed and sat back. No horns after that. It was dead quiet for 2 minutes or so after the siren was turned off. In the end I had dinner in Salem – 330 kms – 13 hours later. The siren is still searing through my head when I am writing this in the refuge of a quiet room.